Jonathan Miller's Mafia-style ENO production of Verdi's Rigoletto is now on its 12th revival since it was first seen in 1982, and even though its imitators have robbed it of some of its ability to startle, they haven't blunted its moral force or its deep, often disquieting, compassion. Miller has returned to direct, and one notices a sharpening of its portrayal of urban alienation. A sense of real danger still emanates from those dank, ill-lit New York streets, and from the Edward Hopper-style brothel-cum-bar where Sparafucile plies his murderous trade.

Miller is aided immeasurably by remarkable performances from Anthony Michaels-Moore as Rigoletto and Michael Fabiano as the Duke. Michaels-Moore's embittered joker masks self-loathing with vicious humour, and in his scenes with Katherine Whyte's Gilda takes us into territory in which tenderness and obsession are brought into juxtaposition. Fabiano, his voice rich yet easy, looks like the young Montgomery Clift, and we really understand, for once, just why women are content to ruin their lives for him. He's not just about sensuality, though, since he also captures the arbitrariness of the man's violence.

There are inequalities elsewhere. Whyte sounds good, but dramatically is a bit of a cipher. There's passionate conducting from Stephen Lord, though he's perversely restrained during Rigoletto's attack on the Duke's cronies in act two, which should be one of the most gut-wrenching moments. Ultimately, it's a flawed revival, though Michaels-Moore and Fabiano also make it unforgettable.